KEEP THE OLD WARM

If names are not rectified, then words are not appropriate. If words are not appropriate, then deeds are not accomplished. If deeds are not accomplished, then the rites and music do not flourish. If the rites and music do not flourish, then punishments do not hit the mark. If punishments do not hit the mark, then the people have nowhere to put hand or foot. So when a gentleman names something, the name can definitely be used in speech; and when he says something, it can definitely be put into practice. In his utterances the gentleman is definitely not casual about anything.’ – 孔夫子 Master Kong (Confucius) The Analects 13:3

Errors in individual speech in the end cause a society of people to become lost. I believe that is how we feel in the United States today – a tempest of incorrect speech resulting in confusion and hysteria. Let us examine our speech today by looking at how in three novels, three different dystopias exist because of the elimination of information and thus any ability for correct speech, and how in the US, our words, our speech, remains in error.

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Each of the three novels shows us a world where wisdom, knowledge, and all the gifts of history and our ancestors are gone. Yet, there is an inherent hunger for it, because it is natural to humans to learn from the past, live, and gift their experiences to the future.

Throughout the three famous Dystopian novels, Brave New World, 1984, and Fahrenheit 451, there is a common theme in regards to information and how accessible it is to the public. Important information about history, philosophy, religion, literature, etc., is either destroyed of forbidden (1984), kept secret and replaced with perfected pleasure and entertainment (Brave New World), or ignored, unwanted, and considered trash (Fahrenheit 451). The mysterious ruling elite in each book either find this knowledge and information as unnecessary and a burden, an outright threat, or allow it to fade into irrelevance and discarded. Throughout each book, one knows the characters and the masses of their fellow people suffer in their own unique worlds from being without the long history of knowledge gifted to posterity by the figures of history, having only the worlds their rulers reign over to engage with.

First, in Brave New World, people have no access to information about their society’s history. No-one knows what has been taken from them. They’ve all grown up as humans biologically designed by the world government, grown in test tubes, born without parents or family, and placed in society in one of 5 ranks by higher powers. Some are bred to be perfect at the highest, other born to be deformed and the lowest laborers at the bottom. None are given no knowledge of what came before this world. Instead, they are given set lives and jobs with an endless supply of a drug perfected by technology and science to keep them continually in such a state of pleasure.

Only a very small number of people are taken by a desire to find out truth. It is those from the highest class in society who are biologically designed to be superior. Only a small percentage of them may find their way to wondering about the past, about what came before, and growing discontent with the repetition and stale perfection of their world. The vast majority of people do not seek to find information, because their society is scientifically designed to keep them content and comfortable in their per-determined social groups and organization.

However, the social classes are not the only means of control the ruling elite of the world government has. Even though their lifestyles differ immensely in terms of luxury and work, all classes are given the same, extraordinarily easy access to a truly perfect drug called soma; it has all the most pleasurable effects of intense drugs and medications we know of in our real world today, yet without any of the painful side effects. It is a very powerful magic pill. This pill, produced in mass quantities, keep every living being in a position where if anything bad or frightening happens to them, if they even begin to think about things, question things, wonder, doubt, all they have to do, and all they ever want to do, is take a strong dose of soma, and pass out in a cloud-dream world of pure ecstasy (and with no physical or mental side effects). They awake without any doubt, anxiety, or any mental unbalance whatsoever, returning to their predetermined place in the world. While the masses are kept in this type of world, a small supra-elite act as controllers of the entire world society.

These “World Controllers” are the only individuals who know what history is. They keep all historical knowledge, or true information of the current society and how it came to be, kept secret from the masses of people. They believe it is for the good of the common citizens that they are kept in the dark —- consuming magical drugs and doing exactly what has been designed for them to do, rather than be able to consume knowledge about their society’s history and how it is run for them. If they were given that freedom of thought, the rulers believe they would be too troubled and unhappy, and they would become forces of change and opinion too strong for the World Controllers to keep within bounds. The whole design of this society would shatter if people were given freedom of thought, freedom to access information. This information blackout of Brave New World is what is deemed best for all people and what is best for humanity.

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In 1984, citizens are also not given any kind of true information about their society’s history, however far more people do crave it compared to characters in Brave New World. Information is monopolized by complete totalitarian rule by The Party. They will kill, torture, and do whatever they wish to whomever seems to even hint of wanting to seek information outside party propaganda. Those who actively seek it never, ever last long enough to get the information, let alone do something about it. The surveillance is iron-clad and penetrates all society.

Under the ruling elite, there are mid-level classes of workers for the Party who are kept under this surveillance. In this class, while there are many people who genuinely believe any and all Party propaganda, there are people who know they are being kept in the dark, and know they are being watched for any suspicious signs of wanting to seek the light of knowledge. In the lowest class are the masses of people called Prols who have no desire for information. They are kept busy day and night with gambling, prostitution, drugs, and other forms of indulgence and distraction made easily available to them in mass quantities. Similar to Brave New World, the Prols have their forms similar to (but far less perfect) Soma, while those who work for The Party (but who are not at all near its leading inner circles) are kept in control with fear of being discovered, or they fully believe in the monstrous load of propaganda spread to every corner of society. Either way you turn, all citizens are kept in an information blackout.

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In Fahrenheit 451, firefighters are literally book burners. Instead of putting out fires, they burn books; systematically eliminating them from existence. Over time in this society, there came to be a calculated effort by the ruling powers to eliminate books. This was because people over time lost patience for books, were offended by them, hated that those who read books were smarter than those that didn’t, and overall believed books were not at all benefiting to the happiness of citizens. The public had no issue eliminating them. The public in Fahrenheit 451, in a futuristic and technologically fast paced society, didn’t want to take the effort to read anything, and settled for the quick and accessible pleasures their society offered. In addition to satisfying their cravings easily, they are happy with a number of different ways to obtain all the information they’d need for their society, primarily through massive television screens. Information in books was far too in depth and excessive, so burning the books became a matter of getting rid of the trash no-one wanted.

Over generations of book burning by whole armies of book-burning firemen, there emerged a state of information blackout. Only very small minorities of people deemed extremely odd and even dangerous by society still owned, hid, and read books.

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Lastly, although history has many examples of book burning by rulers who seek to destroy information so their own power is more secure, let me add a historical example of the 20th century that mirrors these books and their relation to public information. The Nazi Party of Germany, in their rapid rise to power, burned everything that was opposed to their specific Nazi ideology. This was a tactic to cement their grip on peoples minds; if people could not read ideas that would oppose Nazi propaganda, then they were far more easily swayed by such aggressive propaganda. This was the early attempts at an unsuccessful information blackout.

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In all these examples, the domain of public knowledge is a battlefield in which ruling forces seek to destroy various forms of public knowledge to more easily control the major population.

A quote by a Sith Lord (an evil warrior and sorcerer in Star Wars);

Knowledge is power, and true Sith do not share power

This motto of an all powerful overlord symbolizes how tyrants and their ruling minorities may view knowledge; they wish to keep it for themselves, hiding it from the population they rule over.

As in Brave New World, the rulers believe they are doing it for the good of the people, saving them from the agony caused by having to think for themselves. Keep knowledge from them, and we, the ruling world controllers can quietly and with super-efficiency, organize society and give people top quality produced happiness in a pill.

In 1984, the rulers keep information from the people, not for the people’s own happiness, but to forever secure the power of The Party. That ruling elite actively re-writes history by destroying old knowledge and printing new knowledge fitted to party propaganda, progressing to absolute control of “facts” in the world.

In Fahrenheit 451, rulers were in the early stages of an information blackout by using firefighters as book burners, carrying out the destruction of knowledge on a large and efficient scale, and having other means of information be accessible through advanced television screens.

For the Nazi’s, they only began the process of destroying information. Had they won the second World War, they would have likely continued this process in a far more brutal and systematic fashion such as that of Fahrenheit 451 and 1984.

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The aim to eradicate existing knowledge among a population begins when a ruling body attacks and intimidates individuals or groups who wish to share knowledge with their fellow citizens, simply for the sake of keeping the knowledge alive and to inspire its readers to fight for its right to be heard by other people and posterity.

Think of a timeline: Nazis begin burning books; ruling elite of Fahrenheit 451 establish whole systems to destroy knowledge quickly; 1984, most information is now destroyed and being rewritten, surveillance and the police state operate at maximum efficiency and total power to weed out the last of people seeking knowledge; lastly, in Brave New World, the rulers have little need of a super police state and surveillance, for they now have almost no-one who wishes to seek knowledge but are perfectly content and happy with magical drugs. Even the people themselves are biologically engineered in factories with their intelligence levels designed to fir their set classes. Only the elite class is even biologically able to think independently. If an alpha becoming curious about historical knowledge, the World Controllers simply send them to an island to live out the rest of their days.

There is a progression to these four areas I’ve discussed. It begins with a ruling body starting the process of physically destroying knowledge and even those who seek it. With this in mind, let us cautiously access where the United States stands today in regards to public information and knowledge?

In the U.S., public information and knowledge is perfectly accessible and alive. There is no immediate threat whatsoever. There is only a far more subtle and patient threat which seeks to disconnect people from the knowledge that truly is good for their personal happiness and their positive effect on the world. We do not see forceful attacks or intimidation of groups on such scales as the Nazis or the rulers in the three novels. Instead, we see a far more subtle, innocent looking attack on public knowledge.

Instead of directly eradicating public knowledge by burning books, large numbers of people are being lured away from any pursuit of knowledge in books . Books take time to read, and even more time to implement if they give useful information that can be put into action. Instead of taking the short leisurely hours they have off from tiring work to read and study books, the US public is given for more easily accessible sources of information which take almost no effort to learn and apply. Or they are given outright distraction.

The US political media and public servants with them, are drowning the citizenry in a hurricane of information which is the opposite of books – it is confusion and isolation. To watch or read the news is to be confused, thrown in disarray, or given information that will only confirm our opinions in an information bubble. It is the opposite of an individual person picking up a book of their choice, and reading it in their own time, studying it with their own intelligence and opinion, and applying it in a way they see fit.

In the US, information given to us by media institutions is something akin to screaming and ranting which utterly shatters the patience which is needed to truly listen, think, and form a fair response. While the number of books stand in piles and piles that could form whole hillsides or small mountains, while libraries remain full of books yet almost empty of people, it is the information which involves almost no work at all to obtain and understand, brought straight to out eyes and ears through screens while we  sit comfortably in a big chair, bed, or on a couch…..that information is everywhere. Books are forsaken, while the shiny, bright, clever, loud, emotional information given to us is enthroned and delivered hourly via phones, computers, and televisions. Each year this media empire and its puppet-public faces grow louder, brighter, more witty, clever, fun, funny, bizarre, and are brought to you with more speed, ease, and comfort.

The information in books has been forced into a war for survival by an information war-mongering media. Its information benefits little besides the companies who produce and sell it. Remember, this information makes those people millions, even billions. True books are not for profit, but to say something that needs to be said, and to help others. Authors don’t dream of riches. Corporations who swallow up their competitors and merge into super companies dream of riches. They will display any trash we want to get the views they need. Books simply wish to remind readers that certain things exist, or existed, and that if they do not continue to repeat the information verbally or in writing, such information dies. Media corporations want your views, so they obtain their money. They care not at all of your intelligence and well being. They do not care about the future. Keeping you ignorant, confused, and enraged is a more trustworthy source of revenue. Informed, cooperative citizens do not make for large revenue streams.

The type of information fed to the US public is not in it to continue a chain of knowledge and information for future generations. Information empires in the US are in it to make money. There is nothing wrong with making money, but when it is in the domain of public information and knowledge, and your income depends on damaging or distracting the patience and good judgement of common people, there is a problem. Greater profit calls for greater conflict and confusion among the people

This is not to say down with the media companies. This is to say, we must separate information produced by multi-national media corporations, and information contained in books up to several millennia old, into two spheres. Give books the final authority of wisdom, and give the media companies the authority of merely bringing current events to the attention of the public. Combine the knowledge and wisdom of books, to judge the things which happen today. Do not simply listen to one man’s or woman’s quick, cheap commentary on current events and believe that that is all there is to know. They want your views, not to educate you. It is an inconvenient truth that the wisdom of books cannot be delivered in the quick and stylish fashion as the wisdom of the media.

Instead of books, our years and years of devouring media has limited our level of understanding of basic democratic ideals, processes, and the history of our own country. Under poor and incompetent leaders, authority figures, and speakers, we the people are constantly being lured and trapped into tedious and viciously fickle arguments, and over-all are never encouraged by such leaders to compromise and see the best in different political preferences, and to finally stand together and ACT. We are driven to prefer drawing a line in the sand, believing all people on the other side are evil and wrong, and then to listen to people elected from our own side merely say in a million different ways, “We are right, you are wrong, get over it and let us decide everything.” Then nothing gets done at all.

Aristotle said politics belongs firmly in the practical sciences which aim to define what the right course of action is in different contexts. Politics is to take practical action.

It is clear our leaders are falling short of their job by confusing us, distracting us, and pushing us to argue and debate until the end of time. They are in league with powerful super-corporate entities and are not aiming to lead the common people. Yet let us remember that all leaders are not like this and that there are good ones among us.

As common men and women of the public, we must keep on guard against leaders who seek to feed us enticing yet divisive and petty information so they may quietly carry out selfish and corrupt aims without our attention, awareness, and judgement.

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Case study:

Time: 2024

Location: United States

Subject: Public information, media structure, quality of leadership in media.

As a primary example, the United States during the 2016-2017 election highlights a calculated effort of certain individuals and groups in positions of leadership to destroy or weaken good knowledge. Rather than paralleling Brave New World, 1984, or Farenheit 451, the U.S. media environment today is unique.

Today, leaders in public service and the political media are not burning our books. They have more sophisticated ways of destroying public knowledge: The promote anger, discomfort, quick and hasty learning of politics, history, philosophy, and current events, and overall want us to fight one another with our words. They do not want to rectify our speech and make it correct, but the opposite. They promote unstructured argument, slothful scoffing, and easily conquered and divide citizens into separate camps. They drive each of us into our own little jail cell of an opinion. An opinion they crafted for us, presented to us, and shoved in our faces. I know there are leaders who laugh as they get us to play their game.

Books sit idle as we tune in to watch commentators (some of which do not have a college degree) who with perfectly trimmed suits, hair and make-up, with velvet voices and well timed jests and laughter, give us their chosen information, so we may repeat it to our fellow citizens. These commentators, many unqualified and unconcerned about fundamental political issues, spew stories as a printer spews out paper. Such stories are directed by top officials in media corporations who have innumerable conflicts of interests.

Our consumption of public information is the equivalent of consuming fast food. We are not given time, money, or the recipe to cook the burger ourselves at home with quality ingredients, we are given a mass produced, difficult to digest, mystery ingredient filled burger, who’s producer’s aim is not for our health and quality digestion, but rather our money and addiction to convenience. Media sources do not care for the quality opinion and education of the common man, but aim to lure us in to watching their emotionally appealing style of education. More viewers addicted to their “fast food” content, the more profit for them. Their allegiance is to their corporate owner’s mission. That mission is not in your interest.

There is no observable fact the media aims to drive all of our public discourse into fickle, tedious, mind numbing, patience dissolving chatter. There is no clear guidance by the media to encourage us to seek out and listen to the most enlightened among the public: Individuals who truly care for the majority, who have studied, written about, and practiced democratic principles and ideals for years.

Why is it our media sets the bar so low for us, and never places us on course to develop our knowledge of politics? In fact, the majority of US media is corporate owned to such an unhealthy degree, that our government is unable to set even simple guidelines to direct quality of content and ensure factual presentation.

The US media has been steadily deregulated since the years of Reagan’s presidency, and today we see that without strong guidelines set by the Federal Communications Commission, our media can freely speak and write with disrespectful, vain, prideful, scoffing, gossip-like, un-prepared, over-emotional, hateful, hasty, absolutely incorrect wording.  We must RECTIFY our words.

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In the United States, true information has not been forgotten, it is not illegal, it is not being burned and eliminated. We are not in a dystopia yet, but we are facing a form of propaganda and disinformation that is new. Our media is not trying to hide good information, they are not trying to hide the truth. Instead, our media is trying to lure us in and participate with their information, their wisdom, instead of that of the Old – the true information and wisdom passed down through generations. They encourage errors in speech to make money, they do not encourage effective politics.

If names are not rectified, then words are not appropriate. If words are not appropriate, then deeds are not accomplished. If deeds are not accomplished, then the rites and music do not flourish. If the rites and music do not flourish, then punishments do not hit the mark. If punishments do not hit the mark, then the people have nowhere to put hand or foot. So when a gentleman names something, the name can definitely be used in speech; and when he says something, it can definitely be put into practice. In his utterances the gentleman is definitely not casual about anything.’ – 孔夫子 Master Kong (Confucius) The Analects 13:3

Let us rectify the situation. Let us rectify our words. This will lead to appropriate action, the country will flourish, punishments and corrections will be appropriate and hit the mark, the people will know what to do. Use proper speech, say things that can result in action, do not be casual with your words.

Rectify your speech, or risk a new kind of dystopia.